1. Field of the Invention
This application relates to drug databases used in medical facilities, and to devices and methods employing such databases.
2. Description of Related Art
Medical facilities, such as hospitals, can have a pharmacy that stores drugs used within the facility. The drugs are dispensed under the supervision of a pharmacist. For example, the pharmacist might dispense drugs from the pharmacy to an anesthesiologist for use during a surgical procedure.
Information about various drugs including, but not limited to, the drugs stored in the pharmacy, can be saved in a database (e.g., a master drug database “MDD”). The MDD is accessible to authorized users in the medical facility, such as the pharmacist. To facilitate inventorying and tracking of drugs within the medical facility, the drugs can be identified by computer-readable codes, as provided by barcodes, radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags, or other types of codes capable of being read in a non-contact manner. The database can store information about a particular drug, such as a drug name, concentration, expiration date, etc., in association with a particular computer-readable code for the drug. Such information can be retrieved from the database when the code is read by a device capable of interpreting such codes (i.e., “a code reader”). Example code readers include barcode scanners, RFID readers and the like.
Since a computer-readable code is not easily interpreted by a person, labeling errors can go undetected. For example, a barcode associated with a first type of drug could unknowingly be placed on a second type of drug. When the barcode is subsequently scanned, information about the first type of drug will be retrieved from the database. This could lead a person to who is actually administering or dispensing the second type of drug to erroneously believe that they are administering or dispensing the first type of drug. Similarly, errors in the database itself could lead to a barcode for the first type of drug being placed onto a second type of drug.